While the acid jazz movement kicked off in London clubs during the mid ‘80s, that phenomenon of mixing jazz and hip-hop eventually reached Stateside by the early ‘90s in a wave
of bands including Digable Planets, Guru and Jazzmatazz, Groove Collective and others. One of the groups to emerge on the scene in 1994 was Jazzhole, which broke out with their
self-titled debut that year.

Twenty years later, the core of that group — vocalist Marlon Saunders, keyboardist Warren Rosenstein, guitarist John Pondel — is still making outstanding music together. Their
seventh recording, Blue 72, is a chill concept album in which the three principals re-imagine familiar pop and R&B tunes from the year 1972. Such hits as Carly Simon’s “You’re So
Vain,” Gilbert O‘Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally),” the Bee Gee’s “Run to Me” and Looking Glass’ “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” get the full Jazzhole treatment on this soulful
outing. With some help from vocalists Michelle Lewis (who interprets Gamble & Huff’s “Drowning in a Sea of Love”), Rosa Ross (who breathes new life into Jim Croce’s “Operator
(That’s Not the Way It Feels)”) and Lindsey Webster (who contributes seductive Portuguese vocals on Elton John’s “Rocket Man” and America’s “Ventura Highway”).

Saunders, who delivers stirring vocals on intimate, seductive renditions of “You're so Vain,” “Alone Again (Naturally)” and “Brandi (You’re a Fine Girl”), overdubs a vocal
choir in approximating the Gibb brothers harmonies on “Run to Me.” And he also turns in a faithful rendition of the Stax soul classic “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to be
Right),” which was a hit for singer Luther Ingram in 1972. “Most of Marlon’s vocals were actually the pilot takes that he was singing along with the band,” explains Rosenstein
of their two-day recording session. “Marlon’s singing is just so consistently remarkable that you don’t even worry about, ‘Was that a good vocal pass?’ You just worry about,
‘How was the band?’ So not only are we talking about the absence of Auto-Tune and other technological gimmicks with Marlon, but also there were 30 or 40 other vocals he did on
those two days that were all fantastic vocals that could've been on the record. So to me, working with Marlon is like a throwback to records that were made in the ‘60s, where you
had one microphone and the whole band was in the room and if the band got a good take then that take was the vocal you used.”

Adds Rosenstein on the concept behind Blue 72, “I always felt that 1968 to 1973 was really just a great era for pop music, R&B, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. If you go back now and
look on the charts and see albums from those years that were #90 or #100 on the charts, they would all today be considered some of the best albums ever. Comparatively, there was
just such an incredible amount of great music in that era. I'm not exactly sure why we ended up choosing 1972. It may quite simply been driven by the fact that Blue 72 rhymes.”

Regarding their longstanding chemistry over the past 20 years, Saunders says, “In the early years of Jazzhole we were spending seven to nine hours with each other every day,
working and writing and eating together and laughing and just developing friendships and this sense of trust that we all have discovered together. And we know now that we like
things to have space and we like to have a certain way that we want the music to groove and a certain harmonic sound that we may want. And we are able to do it in a way that it’s
a great environment for all of that to take place.”

Saunders adds that the band hit its stride with its fourth album, 2000’s Blackburst. “When I hear that record I know that we've settled in harmonically and groove-wise. And from
that point on, whenever it was time to come together to work on Jazzhole, it was very clear. By that point we had developed this sense of trusting that the space that we have
discovered together is a place where we can creatively bring our ideas and know that something that we all somehow or another will agree upon will come about.”

“In some ways, we've developed a collective aesthetic where John might like a kind of jazz that doesn't appeal to me and Marlon might like something that isn’t my cup of tea,”
says Rosenstein. “But collaboratively, I think there's a set of principles that we share. I think whatever else our different interests are, we all appreciate productions that let
the song breathe and let the music come through. And we all believe that something done simply is better than something done needlessly complicated.”

“One of the great things about working with John and Warren and the musicians that we are fortunate enough to work with, like bassist Scott Colley and alto saxophonist Dave
Binney, is that we can create a lot of stuff right in the moment,” says Saunders. “And the musicians are of such a great caliber that if Warren hears an idea or John hears an idea,
then we can kind of shift until we find what we really need to find. And I know for me, creating in that type of environment and that type of space, particularly in the industry
today where there's so much cutting and editing and sampling, is rare. It’s so nice to take the band, put them in the studio and just create the music. There’s something to be said
for that process.

“That's the joy, to me, of working with Jazzhole,” Saunders continues. “It’s always about this creative space where we take the time to think about how we feel about this, what’s
the sound we’re really going for. And once the three of us put out there what we’re thinking, then the joy is just finding what we thought about. It’s kind of nice to just be in a
space where that can just happen so freely and so openly.”

Adds Pondel, “The thing I love about working with Warren and Marlon is that as we’ve evolved over the years there’s so much that we don’t have to say, that we don’t have to
explain. It's an intrinsic vibe that’s developed as we’ve grown together. And that’s why we can kind of knock off for four or five years and come back and work together and it’s
fresh. We kind of know our equation and we're comfortable with it. We enjoy each other’s company, we love each other as brothers, so that’s what has sustained us.”

You can hear that indelible, longstanding chemistry in action on Blue 72, Jazzhole’s eighth and most intriguing album to date.